Who is not aware, for instance, of the vast difference between a merely scientific knowledge of music and that enlistment of the sympathies in the art which makes it the eloquent medium of passion, sentiment, and truth? And in literature, how often do we find the most delicate perception of beauty in the writer, combined with a total want of genuine refinement in the man! Art is essentially imitative; and its value, as illustrative of character, depends not upon the mental endowments, but upon the moral integrity of the artist. The idea of talent is associated more or less with the idea of success; and on this account, the lucrative creed of the New Englander recognises it with indiscriminate admiration; but there is a whole armory of weapons in the human bosom, of more celestial temper. It is a nobler and a happier thing to be capable of self-devotion, loyalty, and generous sympathies, to cherish a quick sense of honour and find absolute comfort only in being lost in another, than to have an eye for colour, whereby the rainbow can be transferred to canvas, or a felicity of diction that can embalm the truest pictures in immortal numbers. Not only or chiefly in what he does, resides the significance of a human being. His field of action and the availability of his powers depend upon health, education, self-reliance, position, and a thousand other agencies; what he is results from the instincts of his soul, and for these alone he is truly to be loved. It is observable among New Englanders, that an individual's qualities are less frequently referred to as a test of character than his performances. It is very common for them to sacrifice social and private to public character, friendship to fame, sympathy to opinion, love to ambition, and sentiment to propriety. There is an obvious disposition among them to appraise men and women at their market rather than their intrinsic value. A lucky speculation, a profitable invention, a saleable book, an effective rhetorical effort, or a sagacious political ruse some fact which proves, at best, only adroitness and good fortune, is deemed the best escutcheon to lend dignity to life, or hang as a lasting memorial upon the tomb. Those more intimate revelations and ministries which deal with the inmost gifts of mind, and warmest emotions of the heart, and through which alone love and truth are realized, are but seldom dreamt of in their philosophy.

There is yet another principle which seems to me but faintly recognised in the New England philosophy of life, however it may be occasionally cultivated as a department of literature; and yet it is one which we should deem essentially dear to man, a glorious endowment, a crowning grace of humanity. It is that principle through which we commune with all that is lovely and grand in the universe, which mellows the pictures of memory into pensive beauty, and irradiates the visions of hope with unearthly brightness; which elevates our social experience by the glow of fancy, and exhibits scenes of perfection to the soul that the senses can never realize. It is the poetical principle. If this precious gift could be wholly annihilated amid the commonplace and the actual, we

| should lose the interest of life. The dull routine of daily experience, the tame reality of things, would weigh like a heavy and permanent cloud upon our hearts. But the office of this divine spirit is to throw a redeeming grace around the objects and the scenes of being. It is the breeze that lifts the weeds on the highway of time and brings to view the violets beneath. It is the holy water which, sprinkled on the Mosaic pavement of life, makes vivid its brilliant tints. It is the mystic harp upon whose strings the confused murmur of toil, gladness and grief, loses itself in music. But it performs a yet higher function than that of consolation. It is through the poetical principle that we form images of excellence, a notion of progress that quickens every other faculty to rich endeavour. All great men are so, chiefly through unceasing effort to realize in action, or imbody in art, sentiments of deep interest or ideas of beauty. As colours exist in rays of light, so does the ideal in the soul, and life is the mighty prism which refracts it. Shelley maintains that it is only through the imagination that we can overleap the barriers of self and become identified with the universal and the distant, and, therefore, that this principle is the true fountain of benevolent affections and virtue. I know it is sometimes said that the era of romance has passed; that with the pastoral, classic, and chivalrous periods of the world, the poetic element died out. But this is manifestly a great error. The forms of society have greatly changed, and the methods of poetical development are much modified, but the principle itself is essential to humanity. No! mechanical as is the spirit of the age, and wide as is the empire of utility, as long as the stars appear nightly in the firmament, and golden clouds gather around the departing sun; as long as we can greet the innocent smile of infancy and the gentle eye of woman; as long as this earth is visited by visions of glory and dreams of love and hopes of heaven; while life is encircled by mystery, brightened by affection, and solemnized by death, so long will the poetical spirit be abroad, with its fervent aspirations and deep spells of enchantment. Again, it is often urged that the poetical spirit belongs appropriately to a certain epoch of life, and that its influence naturally ceases with youth. But this can only be the case through selfapostasy. The poetical element was evidently intended to mingle with the whole of human experience; not only to glow in the breast of youth, but to dignify the thought of manhood, and make venerable the aspect of age. Its purpose clearly is to relieve the sternness of necessity, to lighten the burden of toil, and throw sacredness and hope even around suffering-as the old painters were wont to depict groups of cherubs above their martyrdoms. Nor can I believe that the agency of this principle is so confined and temporary as many suppose. It is true our contemplation of the beautiful is of short duration, our flights into the ideal world brief and occasional. We can but bend in passing at the altar of beauty, and pluck a flower hastily by the way-side;-but may there not be an instinct which eagerly appropriates even

ciple, it is the mighty tide which sways all that is solemn and eternal in life. To love, in one sense, is, indeed, little more than an animal necessity; but to love nobly, profoundly-to love, as Madame de Stael expresses it, "at once with the mind and with the heart," to dedicate to another mature sympathies, is the noblest function of a human being. The fever of passion, the ignoble motives, the casual impulses which belong to our nature, blend, it is true, with the exercise of all affection, but love, in its deepest and genuine import, is the highest and most profound interest of existence. This is a truth but imperfectly understood; but there are few spirits so utterly bereft of celestial affinities as not to respond, more or less cordially, to every sincere appeal to a capacity so divine. All the folly of vain imaginations, all the coarseness of vulgar sensuality, all the scorn of mental hardihood, while they profane the name, can never violate the sacred realities of love. There have been, and there ever will be earnest and uncompromising bearts, who bravely vindicate a faith too native and actuating ever to be eradicated. Such natures can only realize themselves through love, and in proportion to their integrity will be their consciousness of the glory of this attribute. They intuitively anticipate its pervading influence upon their character and happiness. They feel that within it lies the vital points of their destiny, and through it their access to truth. The world may long present but glimpses of what they ever watch to decry. Life may seem barren of a good never absent from their inward sense. At times, from very weariness, they may be half inclined to believe that the love for which they pray is but a poetic invention, having no actual type. Witnessing so much apparent renunciation, they may, at last, regard themselves as vain dreamers, and look back with bitter regret upon years of self-delusion. But, the great want, the haunting vision, the prophetic need, assert themselves still; and when, through self-denial and fervent trust, the dawn glimmers upon their souls, the lonely vigil and restless fears of the night are forgotten in "a peace which the world can neither give nor take away." To some minds it may appear sacrilegious thus to identify love with religion, but the sentiments rightly understood, are too intimately allied to be easily divided. It is through the outward universe that natural theology points us to a Supreme Intelligence; and it is through the creature that spirits of lofty mould most nearly approach the Creator. Coleridge describes love as the absorption of self in an idea dearer than self. This is doubtless the only process by which the problem of human life is solved to exalted natures. It is vain that you bid them find content, either in the pleasures of sense or the abstractions of wisdom, however keen their perceptions, or ardent their passions. They know themselves born to find completion through another. A subtle and pleading expectance foretells the advent of a Messiah. They seek not, but wait. It is no romantic vision, no extravagant desire, but a clear and deep conviction that speaks in their bosoms. This is the germ of the sweetest flower that shall

adorn their being; this is their innate pledge of immortality, and ceaselessly invokes them to selfrespect and glory.

There is something essentially shallow in the play of character, until feeling gives it shape and intensity. The office of love is to induce a strong and permanent motive, and it is this process which concentrates all the faculties of the soul. Hence

the satisfaction which follows;-a condition wholly different from what was previously regarded as enjoyment. Through vanity and the senses, partial delight may have been obtained; but it was a graft upon, rather than a product of the heart. The blessedness of true love springs from the soul itself, and is felt to be its legitimate and holiest fruit. Thus, and thus alone, is human nature richly developed, and the best interests of life wisely embraced. Shadows give way to substance, vague wishes to permanent aims, indifferent moods to endearing associations, and vain desire to a "hope full of immortality." Man is for the first time revealed to himself, and absolutely known to another; for entire sympathy, not friendly observation, is the key to our individual natures; and when this has fairly opened the sacred portal, we are alone no more for ever!

AUTHORSHIP.

FROM THE SAME.

Ir we look narrowly into the history of those with whose thoughts and feelings literature has made us most intimate, it will often appear that in them there was combined a degree of sensibility and reflection which absolutely, by the very law of the soul, must find a voice, and that it was the pressure of some outward necessity, or the pain of some inward void that made that voice-(fain to pour itself out in low and earnest tones)-audible to all mankind. Some one has said that fame is love disguised. The points of a writer are usually those wherein he has been most alone; and they owe their effect to the vividness of expression which always results from conscious selfreliance. Literary vanity is a subject of frequent ridicule: but many confound a thirst for recognition with a desire for praise. The former is a manly as well as a natural sentiment. Indeed there is something noble in the feeling which leads an ardent mind-looking in vain for a response to its oracles among the friends amid whom its lot is cast-to appeal to a wider circle and send its messages abroad on the wings of the press, in the hope and faith that some heart will leap at the tidings and accept them as his own. I am persuaded that this truly human craving for sympathy and intelligent communion, is frequently mistaken for a weaker and more selfish appetite-the morbid love of fame. High-toned and sensitive beings invariably find their most native aliment in personal associations. They are sufficiently aware that notoriety profanes, that the nooks, and not the arena of life afford the best refreshment. It is usually because poverty, ill health, domestic trial, political tyranny, or misplaced affection has deprived their hearts of a complete sanctuary, that they seek for usefulness and honour in the fields of the world.

SARAH MARGARET FULLER, by marriage Marchioness of Ossoli, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about the year 1807. Her father, Mr. Timothy Fuller, was a lawyer, and from 1817 to 1825 a representative in Congress. At the close of his career as a legislator he retired to a farm near Cambridge, where he died soon after, leaving a widow and six children, of whom Margaret was the eldest.

At a very early age she exhibited unusual abilities, and was particularly distinguished for an extraordinary facility in acquiring languages. Her father, proud of the displays of her intelligence, prematurely stimulated it to a degree that was ultimately injurious to her physical constitution. In her ninth year he was accustomed to require of her the composition of a number of Latin verses every day, while her studies in philosophy, history, general science, and current literature were pressed to the limit of her capacities. When he first went to Washington he was accustomed to speak of her as one "better skilled in Greek and Latin than half of the professors;" and in one of her essays she herself observes that in childhood she had well-nigh forgotten her English while constantly reading in other tongues.

Soon after the death of her father she applied herself to teaching, as a vocation, first in Boston, then in Providence, and afterward in Boston again. She made her first appearance as an author, in a translation of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, in 1839. When Mr. Emerson, the next year, established The Dial, she became one of the principal contributors to that remarkable periodical, in which she wrote many of the most striking papers on literature, art, and society. In the summer of 1843, she made a journey to the Sault St. Marie, and in the next spring published in Boston reminiscences of her tour, under the title of Summer on the Lakes. The Dial having been discontinued, she went to reside in New York, where she had charge of the literary department of the Tribune, which acquired a great acces

sion of reputation from her critical essays. Here, in 1845, she published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, an eloquent expression of her discontent at having been created female; and in 1846, Papers on Literature and Art, in two volumes, consisting of essays and reviews, reprinted from periodicals.

In the summer of 1845, she accompanied the family of a friend to Europe, visiting England, Scotland, and France, and passing through Italy to Rome, where they spent the ensuing winter. The following spring she proceeded with her friends to the north of Italy, and there stopped, spending most of the summer at Florence, and returning, at the approach of winter, to Rome, where she was soon after married to Giovanni, Marquis d'Ossoli, who made her acquaintance during her first winter in that city. They resided in the Roman states until the summer of 1850, when, after the surrender of Rome to the French army, they deemed it expedient to go to Florence, both having taken an active part in the republican movement. They left Florence in June, and at Leghorn embarked in the ship Elizabeth for New York. The passage commenced auspiciously, but at Gibraltar the master of the ship died of small-pox, and they were detained at the quarantine there some time in consequence of this misfortune, but finally set sail again on the eighth of June, and arrived on the American coast during a terrible thunder-storm or the eighteenth and nineteenth of August, when, in the midst of darkness, rain, and a terrific gale, the ship was hurled on the breakers off Fire Island, near Long Island, and in a few hours was broken in pieces. Margaret Fuller d'Ossoli, the Marquis d'Ossoli, and their son, with several others, lost their lives.

Madame d'Ossoli had completed for the press an extended work on The Recent Revolutions in Europe, which was lost in the wreck. She also wrote, while abroad, a series of brilliant Letters for the Tribune, under the title of Scenes and Thoughts in Europe.

Her Woman in the Nineteenth Century is one of the most brilliant of the many books

on the intellectual and social position of woman that has been published. It is difficult, however, to understand what is its real import, further than to the extent that the author was ill satisfied that there should be difference in the rank and opportunity of the sexes. That there should be some difference in their sphere she seemed not unwilling to allow. Like the rest of that diverting company of women who have contemplated a nullification of certain of the statutes of nature, she would but have choice of places and vocations.

Summer on the Lakes evinces considerable descriptive power, and contains some good verses. Her remarks in this work upon the Indians, and that part of our ethnological literature which relates to them, are very superficial and incautious. She says of Mr. Schoolcraft's Algic Researches, that "a worse book could hardly have been made of such fine materials;" that "had the mythological or hunting stories of the Indians been written down exactly as they were received from the lips of the narrators, the collection could not have been surpassed in interest," but that, as it is, "the phraseology in which they were expressed has been entirely set aside, and the flimsy graces common to the style of the annuals and souvenirs substituted for the Spartan brevity and sinewy grasp of Indian speech." Nothing can be more absurd than this characteristic sentence. The phraseology of the tales has of course been "set aside" in translating them into a language radically different, but the antique simplicity of the originals has been as well preserved as the genius of the English tongue permitted. The wife of the learned author thus assailed, herself of the aboriginal race, and distinguished for whatever is peculiar in their character, wrote down and translated many of these myths and traditions, and it is amusing to see even her part of the work ranked on the score of fidelity below the few stories written out by

Mrs. Jameson, who, however excellent as a critic of art, was here quite out of her depth

almost as ignorant as Miss Fuller herself, who when this was composed had been about one week west of Buffalo, and had seen perhaps a dozen vagabond Indians across the streets of Detroit and Chicago.

The Papers on Literature and Art contain a short essay on Critics, in which she gives a brief exposition of her views of criticism. It is followed by some dozen papers, several of which are admirable in their way. They are all forcible, and brilliant in a degree; but frequently pointed with pique or prejudice.

She was fond of epigram, and showed everywhere a willingness to advance any opinion for the sake of making a point. Thus, in a review of Mr. Poe's writings, she makes the observation that "no form of literary activity has so terribly degenerated among us as the tale," because it gave opportunity to remark "that everybody who wants a new hat or bonnet takes this way to earn one from the magazines or annuals." But no fact is more generally understood by those who have paid any attention to the advancement and condition of letters here, than that the exact reverse of this is true. She rarely attempted particular or analytical criticism, but commended or censured all books with about an equal degree of earnestness, being generally most severe upon those of home production, excepting a few by personal friends.

She had remarkable quickness, but not much subtlety of apprehension; general, but not solid acquirements; and an astonishing facility in the use of her intellectual furniture, which secured her the reputation of being one of the best talkers of the age. Her written style is generally excellent,various, forcible, and picturesque,--though sometimes pedantic and careless,-very much like that of her conversation, and probably a result of but the same degree of labour.

NIAGARA.

WE have not been fortunate in weather, for there Cannot be too much, or too warm sunlight for this scene, and the skies have been lowering with cold, unkind winds. My nerves, too much braced up by such an atmosphere, do not well bear the continual stress of sight and sound. For here there is no

escape from the weight of a perpetual creation; all other forms and motions come and go, the tide rises and recedes, the wind, at its mightiest, moves in gales and gusts, but here is really an incessant, an indefatigable motion. Awake or asleep, there is no escape, still this rushing round you and through you. It is in this way I have most felt the grandeur-somewhat eternal, if not infinite.